Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon
May 11, 2016
Page 5
Message to the membership from Power & Water
During the past five years we
have experienced unprecedented
price drops in the wholesale energy
market in the Northwest.
There are several factors that
have changed the landscape for
energy producers in the Northwest.
The two biggest factors are renew-
able energy resources and natural
gas.
At any given hour we can see
wind generation go from zero mega-
watts to 4,000 megawatts. This has
a big impact on market prices and
affects all available energy to meet
demand.
The other renewable resource af-
fecting the market price is solar
power. This resource is coming on
strong and we will see more and
more solar in the coming years.
The number of new renewable
energy developments has increased
in the Northwest, and by all ac-
counts will continue to increase
through the next decade.
The other large influence caus-
ing energy prices to remain low is
the current price of natural gas, an-
other fuel supply for power stations
in the region.
Right now natural gas prices are
at the same levels they were back
in 1991. A new method for extrac-
tion through a process called
fracking has increased the supply,
making it more economical to gen-
erate power with gas turbines like
the combined cycle combustion tur-
bines.
Enterprise dividend
Because of a large supply of low
cost fuel, gas fired plants are run-
ning at lower operating costs, which
in turn drives energy market pric-
ing down.
In 2015, we struggled due to the
price drops, and the dividend pay-
ment was met with reserve funds
from Warm Springs Power & Wa-
ter Enterprises (WSPWE) invest-
ments.
We will be hard pressed based
on what we know today to continue
using reserves to pay a dividend.
...the dividend pay-
ment will be poten-
tially reduced to levels
not typical from
WSPWE.
The board of directors has made
it very clear we must take drastic
measures to insure we as an oper-
ating division of the tribes stay fi-
nancially solvent. With that, the divi-
dend payment will be potentially
reduced to levels not typical from
WSPWE.
Geothermal
We will continue to explore other
generating opportunities, and see if
we can put together a viable project
that will be needed in the renew-
able energy requirements that the
large utilities will be required to have
in the near future.
We received a grant to explore
our renewable energy potential here
on the reservation. This year we
did some surface work to identify
where the highest potential may be
for a geothermal resource for a
power plant.
That information yielded enough
positive information to submit a
request to further our exploration
and drill at a few sites in the Warm
Springs River Basin area upstream
from Kah-Nee-Ta.
Water rights
Tribal Council has also authorized
us to explore the consumptive wa-
ter rights we have in the Deschutes
basin. That is underway and a re-
port for Tribal Council will be de-
livered in 2016.
We continue to be optimistic that
this business will survive if we man-
age it prudently. Declaring dividends
from surplus revenue and not re-
serves is something that the enter-
prise is going back to, and will place
a high level of importance on ex-
tracting the most value out of this
project as possible.
Habitat restoration
Hydroelectric power will continue
to have a place in the Northwest
energy market. It has operating
characteristics that wind and ther-
mal plants don’t.
The Pelton Project continues to
follow the resource management
requirements as described in the
federal license we were issued.
There are many objectives de-
scribed in the license that we must
follow. We, along with our partner
PGE, have invested over $16 mil-
lion in habitat restoration in the ba-
sin. We also have improvements
that need to be undertaken to keep
the powerhouses up-to-date and op-
erating reliably. These two expenses
are a necessity to insure we are be-
ing prudent and responsible opera-
tors on the river.
Jim Manion, general manager,
Warm Springs Power & Water En-
terprises.
Indian Business Talk
Self help legal advice can cause serious consequences
By Bruce Engle
Loan officer
W.S. Credit Enterprise
Go carefully into that dark
night.
Legal business affairs need to
be carefully handled by people
with legal expertise. That usually
means by an attorney or after con-
sultation with an attorney.
Don’t be a legal “Do-it-
Yourselfer”.
If you have not done your due
diligence, you may be a danger to
yourself and to your business.
For example, the legal meanings
of many words or phrases are of-
ten not the same as the “street”
meanings. I have seen people lose
cases because of some very simple
misunderstandings.
Do-it-Yourselfers often turn to
Self-Help sources for legal guid-
ance. Those providers are often
not trained in the law. All they can
do, and should do, is refer you to
sources.
That leaves it up to you to un-
derstand what you are reading.
The danger is when an untrained
provider offers legal advice.
I have seen an untrained unli-
censed store owner’s advice result
in a couple bankruptcies down
home.
Remember, legal advice cannot
be relied upon from anyone who is
not an attorney. They must be prop-
erly licensed by a state. And they
must be insured.
That’s your safety blanket if they
mess up. You can sue one of them.
You can’t sue yourself.
You can shop for an attorney.
You should. The first short inter-
view often won’t cost you. Ask.
What does that mean for Warm
Springs? In Tribal Court, all legal
spokesmen must have taken and
passed the Tribal Bar Exam. You
don’t want to saddle your spokes-
man in court with a case that started
out because you got and acted upon
poor legal advice from an incom-
petent.
Errors made in a self-help job
will cost you. Count on it.
Also remember the old saying,
“An attorney who represents him-
self has a fool for a client.” We
who are not attorneys would be
even more foolish. Not good!
Our limited knowledge and ex-
perience, when combined with our
emotions, can and will make us
fair game to an expert on the
other side. The rule is, “Pros beat
amateurs.”
Another way of saying that is,
“You don’t win the Derby with a
Donkey.”
actly did every cent of those law-
suits go?
Another contested lawsuit won
by Cobell for government misuse
of funds was to be shared by in-
jured tribes of Yakama and Warm
Springs, resulting in $17,000
awarded to each tribal member of
Yakama. Yet not one tribal mem-
ber of Warm Springs received a
penny. It was allocated elsewhere
under authority of the Tribal Coun-
cil without permission of individual
tribal members who were supposed
to receive those funds. No specific
accounting has been tallied. Now we
see the U.S. government is not the
only entity that has been misusing
incoming funds. Warm Springs tribal
leaders have learned well from the
white man!
People outside the Rez thought
that “Warm Springers” were getting
beaucoup bucks from their casino,
but although other tribes share ca-
sino income with their tribal mem-
bers, Indian Head Casino has never
shared even a penny with any tribal
member… ever! So the question is:
who really owns the Warm Springs
casino.
Other outsiders have speculated
that tribal members were each re-
ceiving enormous “per capita”.
Whereas in reality each member was
receiving only $100 a month… that
it until this last when all per capita
for children under 18 was com-
pletely cut off, and the $100 per
adult was cut down to $25 a month,
and seniors pension was cut. Try liv-
ing on that when you don’t have a
job. Now poverty is rampant, and
tribal leaders have turned to raising
marijuana as a means of income.
Now we know why it is called
“dope”.
Willard Tewee.
Letter to the editor
Honest opinion
April 15 caught 85 mill work-
ers and their families by surprise
when the mill went belly up. In the
past when workers were let go, the
mill paid them “severance pay”.
But none of the mill workers were
given severance pay at this time,
nor were any given 60 days notice
of the mill operations closing.
When the workers learned of it, it
was front page news in the local
newspaper, so people in Madras
knew of it the same day the
millworkers were let go.
When the tribe asked VanPort
to turn it over to them, things have
been steadily going downhill at the
mill ever since. And now we learn
that whoever was in charge of
paying for incoming logs, etc.,
wasn’t doing so. Logs have been
sold outright to Japan and China by-
passing the milling of the logs by
tribal members. The question in
everyone’s mind is where did the
money go from the sale of those
logs? Shouldn’t that money have
been used to pay off the mill debts?
Now the entire mill, we have learned
via the grapevine, is going to be dis-
mantled for good without any hope
of future work for mill workers. It
will be interesting to “follow the
money” from the sale of the mill’s
machines and heavy duty equip-
ment. Too bad severance pay isn’t
in the minds of those who are in
charge, nor is retirement.
Whoever has been making deci-
sions for the Tribe these days hasn’t
kept tribal members in mind. Even
though the tribe has won several
million dollars in lawsuits, the money
wasn’t shared with tribal members,
who are still wondering where ex-
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